On Connectivity Limits in Ad Hoc Networks with Beamforming Antennas

Multihop wireless networks will play an important role in future communication networks. Beamforming antennas have shown great potential to improve the connectivity in these networks; however only heuristic approaches exist to assess the benefits of this technology. Using the popular "keyhole" antenna model, we formulate a Mixed Integer Program (MIP) capable of acquiring optimal antenna configurations for path probability with various auxiliary constraints, node degree, and k-connectivity. We employ a problem-specific large-scale optimization approach named "column generation" to be able to cope with realistic scenario sizes without sacrificing optimality. In a case study, we show the feasibility of our optimization approach and demonstrate that "smarter" beamforming heuristics would still have plenty of room to improve the connectivity of such a network.

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